1 Injured In Staircase Collapse At Beechview Home

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- A Beechview woman is out of the hospital after she and her dog tumbled from her second-floor deck when their staircase collapse Thursday afternoon.

Alyssa Ruggiero and her dog share a story of survival that started late Thursday afternoon when they walked out onto the stairs of their Bensonia Avenue apartment.

"So, I came out and my dog, for some reason is always very leery of these stairs, so I was even saying to her at the top of the stairs, 'It's all right, we're just going to do this once and then we're going to come around.' As soon as I said that, I put my foot on the second step and then I was here," said Ruggiero.

The entire staircase crumbled and they fell about 15 feet to the concrete below.

"Did I break ribs? Am I internally bleeding? Does my daughter have a mother is really like the first thing that really went through my head," said Ruggiero.

Ruggiero's mom had just come to pick the baby up, so she wasn't home.

Ruggiero's husband rushed to the hospital when he got the urgent call.

"Luckily, I get there… everything's better, but you know just looking at this fall. I mean, if it would have been me, I would have died," said Russ Adamson, Ruggiero's husband.

She has cuts and scrapes on her leg and a nasty bruise on her arm, but otherwise, she feels fine.

"God did not want me today. He wanted me to be there with that 6-month-old," Ruggiero said. "Something, something kept me from cracking my neck."

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